the three bears

i love me a whitman tell-a-tale!!!

the three bears as told by solveig paulson russell
1968, western publishing co., racine
illustrated by louise gordon

the gingerbread boy, little red riding hood and the house that jack built

a compilation of three great stories...i love the naïveté of the cover!

little red riding hood is perhaps my favorite fairy tale of all...i grew up with a large painting of little red with the wolf hiding behind a tree. the painting was by this man named eddie newman, who was a street fighter boxer friend of my grandfather's. it was hung directly across from my bed and it gave me nightmares for years.
i used to have these cartoon dreams that the wolf was after me and would catch me by my wrist and gnaw on it. really unpleasant stuff for my 5 year old self. but after a while, i guess it seeped in and i grew to love it and not fear it...and now i'm a bit of a morbid adult and i'm sure this painting has something to do with it!

i told this story to a college professor of mine...i was taking a class titled something like "medieval women's culture" (it was a summer course). after the shock of troubadour poetry being read to me at 8 a.m., the love-lorn letters between abelard and heloise, and many discussions on nuns...i was prompted to share this for some reason and my professor said, "well you must be afraid of men!!" i realized her point, being, that fairy tales concern girls/women in particular ways that they might not men...although i'm not sure about that. anyways, discussion for another day.

the gingerbread boy, little red riding hood and the house that jack built
1945, whitman publishing, racine
illustrated by hilda miloche and wilma kane

tell-a-tale

i wanted to post the other two tell-a-tale books in my library.

slowpoke at the circus by kay richardson
a tell-a-tale book, 1973, western publishing, wisconsin
illustrations by ruth ruhman

two stories about wags by betty biesterveld
a tell-a-tale book, 1960(?), western publishing, wisconsin
illustrated by dan and norma garris

**edit: i actually just realized that i have one more tell-a-tale book (a big one), but i'm saving it for a special post next week!**

peppermint and if i could be

vintage childrens' books are just the best. it's also my most dreaded section at book sales. at the church sale where i picked these up, i had to peek around a family of 500 with a kid screaming to his mother, "can we sell this on ebay?" now i'm not against selling a vintage book, at all. but i did find it kinda annoying. i'm just sayin'. on the other hand, if there are a zillion (i'm overinflating numbers here in case you couldn't tell) kids looking at the books. that's ok. i'm the imposter. me and a whole bunch of school teachers.

lucky for me the family of 500 were more interested in contemporary hardback picture books. i was immediately drawn to poor little peppermint. she's cute, but i fell in love with the title font.

peppermint by dorothy grider
1966, western publishing co. , wisconsin
a whitman tell-a-tale book
illustrated by raymond burns

you can see the font more clearly on the endpaper. although on the cover the coloring is white with pale pink bubbles. i'm also quite smitten with the "illustrated by." overall this is a super cute book. it has a sort of surprise ending, which i won't give away here. i have other tell-a-tales books, and i find them all rather charming.

if i could be, author not credited
1953, whitman publishing, wisconsin
illustrated by lore e. winship (?)

interestingly, an earlier whitman title. this is a short paperback book. the boy on the cover reminds me of my brother a bit. i would've guessed this book was from the '40s were it not for the date. it's super cute! short and sweet.